The Lead

Cord-cutting is happening, but it’s still happening only just enough to be detectable. The pay TV industry lost video customers again in 2014, this time about 125,000, compared to a net loss in 2013 of about 95,000 subscribers.

Vice President Sundar Pichai says Google, the leading Internet search engine and mobile software provider, is working with unnamed network operators on developing a cellular plan. He says "you will see us announce it in the coming months."

The market has reacted to the FCC’s plan to reclassify broadband with utter indifference. Needham nonetheless downgraded Time Warner Cable. Other analysts are likely to follow. If the market is wrong, it needs to be show its error.

Broadcom is in the process of enabling cable operators to perform upstream analysis. Separately, the company has added a pair of gateway chips that include support for both 4K video and MoCA 2.0 connectivity.

Charter Communications announced this morning that it had renamed its Charter Business division “Spectrum Business.” The new name for commercial services is now aligned with the residential Charter Spectrum services that were first announced two years ago.

Fueled by cable operators’ need for more broadband speed, DOCSIS channel shipments reached record levels last year. According to a report by Infonetics Research, DOCSIS channel shipments were up 114 percent to 4.8 million worldwide.

Hewlett-Packard is making a move into the mobile wireless market with today’s news that it has reached a deal to buy wireless networking vendor Aruba Networks for about $2.7 billion. HP said the deal would combine Aruba’s wireless mobility offerings—which include Wi-Fi systems that have been installed in airports, shopping malls, hotels and universities—with its switching portfolio.

On this day in 1883, Oscar Hammerstein patented his cigar rolling machine. As a young man, Hammerstein moved to New York City from the Kingdom of Prussia (now Poland) in 1864. He began working at a cigar factory and eventually worked his way to becoming a cigar maker.

The stock market largely shrugged off the Federal Communications Commission's vote to impose tougher rules on broadband providers like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T to prevent them from creating paid fast lanes for the Internet and slowing or blocking Web traffic.

The stock market largely shrugged off the Federal Communications Commission's vote to impose tougher rules on broadband providers like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T to prevent them from creating paid fast lanes for the Internet and slowing or blocking Web traffic.

And thus ends one of the more interesting technological digressions of recent years. The few assets that Aereo had left were auctioned off and brought in less than $2 million, far, far less than what the defunct company had hoped to reap from the sale.

Mike LaJoie, who retired as Time Warner Cable’s executive vice president and chief technology and network operations officer near the end of last year, has been appointed to the board of multi-screen video vendor Envivio. Envivio also announced that Kevin Dillon, a general partner of Atlantic Bridge, had resigned from its board.

Even if it never wins another award, "House of Cards" already ranks among the most influential series in television history. The political drama launched Netflix's expansion into original programming two years ago, a risky bet that might have toppled the Internet video service had "House of Cards" flopped and squandered its estimated $100 million investment. Instead, the show was an immediate hit with viewers and critics.

People in small communities may get better, cheaper access to the Internet after the Federal Communications Commission ruled Thursday that city-owned broadband services can expand into areas overlooked by commercial providers. The decision quietly played out minutes before the FCC took up the higher-profile issue of Internet neutrality, which imposed the toughest rules yet on broadband providers like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T.

Not long after FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and his liked-minded commissioners voted on Thursday in favor (3-2) of Net Neutrality rules to regulate Internet service providers, the flag dropped on filing lawsuits that will vigorously oppose those new rules. Service providers, such as Comcast, vowed to file lawsuits and work with Congress against reclassifying broadband service as a public utility.